


Invisible

by resonant_aura



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen, at least in this one she is, fluffy endings, jarett is an unexpected therapist, poor keyleth, she's a little creampuff of wibbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 14:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6613480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resonant_aura/pseuds/resonant_aura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An afternoon in which Keyleth tests her courage, ponders her feelings, and hears advice from some unexpected sources.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invisible

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All the people and places you recognize are the intellectual property of their respective creators-- Marisha Ray, Matt Mercer, Liam O'Brien, Laura Bailey, and the other amazing cast and crew of Geek & Sundry’s fantastic webstream show Critical Role.
> 
> Part three of the character studies; this one is Keyleth. Set sometime between the Whitestone and Chroma Conclave arcs. (I got really nostalgic for Emon-that-once-was writing this.) And it has a fluffy ending which feels a little weird for me because fluff? Fluff is good but how did fluff? How fluff? Fluff!

“I would like to know,” Keyleth demands, flipping her hair over her shoulder in the way she’s seen Vex do so many times when she was bargaining in the market, “just _what_ is going on.”

Her quarry, which she’d spent a great deal of time working up the courage to corner in their keep’s courtyard, is utterly silent.

“I mean it,” she says, resisting the urge to stomp her foot in frustration. Stomping would not be intimidating, it would not be serious. _A princess wouldn’t stomp, your Highness_ , she imagines Tiberius saying. Instead she plants her hands on her hips. “I need answers, and I need them—yesterday! Explain to me what is going on. Pike’s gone, Tiberius is gone, and we—I—you—there’s all this—” she coughs once— “Look, the truth is, you owe me an explanation. For why you did what you did. I mean, I know there are no explanations for f-falling in love but… give me _something_!”

Silence. Stillness.

Keyleth takes a deep breath and gently encourages her blood not to pool in her cheeks. That’s a giveaway. She can’t afford those. “Vax,” she says slowly, voice quiet, “I need you to tell me what’s going on. Why all the running, all the gloom, and all the silence. We aren’t getting anywhere and I’m afraid it’s—it’s going to tear us all apart. I’m afraid that—this might be the beginning of the end. For us. For me.” She swallows. “This might be the thing that starts me on that path to… the future.” _To death._ “So. I think… can we talk about it?”

Silence. Then a small breeze billows through the courtyard, and the tree Keyleth has been talking to rustles in response, its lush green leaves murmuring and rattling to the wind.

Keyleth huffs and sits right down on the packed earth, her elbows propped on her bent knees. “Well that figures. You’ll talk to me about as much as Vax does.”

“Keyleth?”

Stifling an embarrassing yelp, Keyleth whirls in the dirt, staring wide-eyed into the archway of the courtyard entrance. There in the shadow is a small, squinting figure—Scanlan, with a loaf of bread cradled in one arm and a stack of jars in the other. “Scanlan?” she says. She tries not to gasp. “Um, uh, wh-what’re you doing here?”

“Just passing through, making the rounds, you know… my usual thing.”

Keyleth’s eyebrows quirk. “You don’t make rounds. You keep telling us none of us should make rounds, that’s what we hired guards for.”

Scanlan’s quick, lightning-bolt grin flickers across his face, a white slice in the afternoon shadows. “Don’t tell the guards that, they might get jaunty.”

Normally Scanlan’s quick humor and mischievous attitude is refreshing company, but at the moment Keyleth finds herself… not in the mood. “Okay, well. I’m fine. If you were coming to check on me. Everything’s fine. So… you know.” She waves a little. “Don’t let me stop you from—snacking?”

“I wasn’t coming to check on _you_. I know you to be a lady of great vigor and clout, you don’t need help from me. I was coming to check on the mysterious voice that I heard plaintively speaking to the air. You wouldn’t happen to know where that was coming from, would you?”

“No, Scanlan,” Keyleth says, now fully aware that she’s flushed and flustered. She turns back around to face the tree. “I didn’t hear anything.”

Behind her Scanlan hums contemplatively. Then she hears the quiet shuffle and thump of glassware on stone. “Oh, clumsy me, I seem to have dropped my snack! Very neatly. Right here on the doorstep. Oh, well, I’m much too tall and it’s too far to the ground for me to bother picking it up. Guess I’ll just have to go charm Laina into giving me more. What a shame. Oh well, off I go!”

Keyleth listens very, very carefully for the sound of Scanlan’s retreating footsteps. She wouldn’t put it past him to cast invisibility and eavesdrop on her, just for fun. Not that it would be that fun for her. She can’t help it, sometimes she just has to get her thoughts out in words, no matter how clumsy and blunt they might be—and it’s far easier to speak to a tree than a person. People have a funny way of judging you when you talk.

Keyleth looks up into the sun-dappled branches and says, “You know, I might become your sister one day.”

If the tree hears her, it gives no sign of its opinion on her future.

With a quiet sigh, Keyleth gives up on her mission of great charisma—for the time being—and glances over her shoulder at the archway again. Scanlan is indeed gone, and left in a neat pile are the bread and a glass container. She smiles and gathers them up, surprised by the responding growl in her belly. She may have skipped breakfast while worrying over her… conversation. She can’t really remember. “Thank you Scanlan,” she murmurs, and sets off through the stone halls of the keep in search of a peaceful corner.

Being Greyskull Keep, home of Vox Machina, there isn’t really any such thing.

She doesn’t want to go up to her bedroom: she knows for a fact Vax is holed up in Vex's room with his sister (she double and triple checked before going downstairs earlier) and the thought of bumping into him right now makes her heart stop beating and instead get stuck in her throat. Too risky, Vex's room is right next to her own. The Chapel of Sarenrae is promising, but something about it has just made Keyleth sad of late. Probably the distinct lack of a certain gnome cleric. She probably could and should just eat in the dining room like a normal person, but… entering the foyer, Keyleth catches sight of the winding staircase that leads up to the walls and battlements of the keep. She thinks of the open blue sky, the friendly wind and warm sunshine, and immediately turns her feet towards the stairs.

The world above the keep is just as cheerful and freeing as she expected. Keyleth takes in a deep, slow breath with her eyes closed, savoring the smells of cut hay and growing things from beyond the wall in the farmers’ lands, the scent of charcoal smoke and hot iron and baking meats from within the town. It’s all a reminder of a healthy city, a prosperous city full of people living their lives.

Even if it’s not _her_ city, not the way everyone says it should be. Still. It’s comforting, to know all these people are near and relatively happy, so long as she doesn’t have to talk to them.

Keyleth looks out over the sun-soaked roofs and bustling alleyways of the city, then turns away to another side of the battlement, looking out across the crenellated pathways and round towers of her home, beyond to the distant but still clearly visible great wall of Emon. The gates are open now, accepting visitors and tradesmen and adventurers for business. She sets the loaf of bread on the warm stone for a moment and struggles with the jar’s lid.

She’s still struggling minutes later, her hands starting to turn red with unhappy friction, and that’s probably why she doesn’t hear the footsteps climbing up to the tower from the wall overlooking the keep’s gate. “Allow me, my lady,” a smooth, richly accented voice says, and Keyleth jumps a little and almost drops the jar over the edge. When she’s recovered (somewhat), she stifles her urge to glare and turns to find Jarett, the head guardsman, a crossbow slung over his shoulder and one hand out in a gentile offering.

She looks from his smile (wry enough to make her embarrassed by her predicament) to his hand, to her jar, to his hand again, to her jar again, and only in that moment does it occur to Keyleth that she could have used bull’s strength. If she remembered how. There were only so many spells she could recall the feeling of in one day, and she hadn’t needed that one for some time—

Jarett’s face has grown puzzled instead of open, and his hand begins to fall to his side.

“Wait, sorry, I was—thinking—um—” Keyleth all but shoves the jar into his hand. “Here. Thank you.”

He looks bemused by her behavior, and that’s another strike for Keyleth. The talking thing, it’s still not improving quickly enough. Keyleth looks down and away, trying not let her frustration get the better of her, while Jarett takes the jar between both his gloved hands and twists the lid off after a moment of resistance and a loud, vacuum-releasing _thwap!_ He offers the jar to her, sticky strawberry jam sliding to the lip of the glass.

“Thanks,” she whispers, taking the jar. She takes a breath, lifts her eyes, and says, “Would you, um—would you like to share?”

His grin is even whiter than Scanlan’s against his dark skin, and he ambles up to the crenel, bracing his arms against the rough stone. “I would. My thanks.”

Oh! That’s not a strike, that’s a score! Keyleth cheers to herself silently and, eager to begin this new and pleasant experience with Talking To People, she reaches for a knife to cut the bread. And realizes she doesn’t have one. Oh. Well. “Um, I think, I’ll have to go to the kitchen to—”

“No need,” Jarett replies lightly, releasing his combat knife from its sheath and easily slicing the bread into thick crescents. It’s not fresh bread, not steaming and soft, but it still smells good. He glances up from his humble task with eyes dancing. “Any knife is good as another, you see?”

Keyleth hums in reply, mulling the statement over, and takes a slice of the chewy brown bread to dip into the jam. Jarett follows suit, and the two eat in a weirdly companionable silence, both looking out over the grounds and surrounding paths of the keep. When she thinks she can risk it, she takes quick, sidelong glances at the guard. He’s a handsome man, powerfully built, standing with calm and centered composure. He doesn’t look like the kind of man to be intimidated by anything.

“Do you like working here, Jarett?” she asks, and whoops in a breath in surprise and embarrassment. She didn’t mean to say that aloud.

Jarett swallows and quirks his brow at her. “The job is steady, the money is good. Mostly.” He shrugs. “It is a job. There are worse things to happen to a body.”

“Yeah, but—what I mean is—” What _does_ she mean? Keyleth scowls into the sunny sky and shakes her hair back from her face. “I mean, do you _like_ it?”

Slowly Jarett pivots his body so that he is leaning on only one elbow, turning to face her more fully. “I’m—not quite sure what you are asking, Lady.”

Exasperated, Keyleth blows out a violent breath and tears off another chunk of bread. She swipes it through the jelly and shoves it in her mouth, and it doesn’t even occur to her that she’s displaying horrible table manners when she mutters through her mouthful, “No one ever is.” She swallows and sighs. “Sorry. It’s not your fault. I guess… I guess what I mean is: why do you want to work here, when you could probably do something bigger? Is this—do you think this is what you’re _supposed_ to do?”

“Ah. You are talking of the pursuit of destiny.”

“Yes,” Keyleth beams, relieved. “Yes exactly. Destiny. And—liking it.”

A funny little smile tugs at the corners of Jarett’s mouth, and he reaches up to remove the simple steel helm he wears. He drops it to the stone floor with a clatter and runs a hand over his tight dark curls. He shrugs again. “Destiny is a comforting thought for most people. If it is enough to get them through the day, then I am happy for them.”

“But is it something that helps _you_?”

Jarett gives Keyleth a baffled look, then reaches for the bread again. “Not really. I go where I need to go. I see what I need to see. The needs I have now are immediate, and honest, and not some vague principle off in the distance.” Jarett waves off at the horizon with an expression of mild disdain. “There is no point wondering about the future when it never happens. It never comes. All there is, is now.”

“Oh.” Keyleth droops a little, weary and feeling old as the flashes of her vision with the Earth Ashari return to her. “Yes. I guess that’s true.”

“You seem… troubled, Lady.” She hears the scrape of metal against stone as Jarett shifts beside her. “I do not wish to overstep. If there is some counsel you seek, perhaps you would do better to find it amongst your companions?”

She wonders, she really does. Would it be better to talk to Vox Machina? As different as they are from her, some of them, she’s sure, would understand the issues of expectation, of obligations looming close from the future’s mists, of wanting to know which is the right path. Pike would know. Percy would know. Even Grog might have some nugget of wisdom to share.

And yet, she can’t. She’s already the weak link among them—she knows it, they all know it. They have all waded into bloodshed and endured their regrets, but whenever the time comes to make a choice, she is the tiniest voice, the faltering hand, the wavering soul. When there is only the briefest window of opportunity for action, for diplomacy, she’s the one watching her friends leap into their certain futures while she stays behind, locked within her own indecision. It’s always been that way, and she doesn’t mind the hesitation all the time. Sometimes she likes to think she can be the conscience of the group.

But the children, in the tower. She can’t be a conscience when she is only a fool.

She’s seen their mettle and for all that Vax is weighed down by his mistakes and Percy fights with his self-loathing every day, for all their broken shards and mismatched problems, they can all _be themselves_. Wholly, unquestionably themselves. They can move forward.

She doesn’t know what that’s like.

They wouldn’t understand.

“No,” she whispers, wondering if her words will be whipped away by the wind before they reach Jarett’s ears, “I don’t think I can.”

There is silence from beside her. Then, Jarett clears his throat softly. “Lady… you pay me to stand guard over your keep and maintain order in this house. But that is only a job for as long as the keep stands, and the keep stands only as long as there is a heart to beat in it.” Keyleth shoots a wide-eyed glance at him; she wasn’t expecting such poetry from… well, from a guard. His face is expressionless for the most part, steady and unassuming—but she sees a remarkable flash of compassion and worry in his dark eyes. “What can I do?”

Keyleth blinks. What can he do—what can _she_ do? Less and less these days, it feels like. She can’t talk to Vax. She can’t finish her AraMente. She can’t come to terms with her friends’ choices to break into buildings and nab gold off of corpses. She tears off another chunk of bread, mouth trembling just a little. “I have no idea, Jarett,” she says, trying to ignore the edge of hysterical laughter in her reply. “I don’t suppose you know how to—turn into someone else?”

“From what I hear, you would know more of that than me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.” Keyleth dips her bread, brings it to her lips, and just stands there. She breathes in the sweetness of the jam and the yeasty smell of the bread and wonders how she ended up on a rooftop with a stolen jar of preserves and a guard, talking about how her life is falling apart. This was supposed to be a nice, short, successful conversation. She pops the bread in her mouth and chews slowly before speaking.

“Somehow… Somehow I feel like I’m not in the heart of the keep. You know? Like something isn’t lined up correctly. There’s too much friction and I guess I used to be the one who could smooth it out, or we all did that a little, but now Vax and Vex have these weird glaring matches and Grog misses Pike so much and Tiberius just left and—and I don’t know, I can’t help feeling Pike would know how to fix it. I’m not doing it right. I’m not doing well enough.” Keyleth finds the words tumbling in an easy stream from her lips. It’s not the usual stutter and struggle. She looks down at her hands, empty, the fingertips slightly purple and dotted with sticky crumbs. “I can’t, because I’m not—I’m not as big as them. They don’t listen. I mean they do, because then we disagree, but it’s uncomfortable. We’ve all turned into our own little corners. And I just—I’m just not enough to keep up with them.”

Jarett listens in intent silence, still leaning against the wall, his knife absently palmed in one hand. His face as she talks, taking shy glances at it, does not change. It’s almost like talking to the tree again. When she finishes, he turns away, busies himself with cleaning the knife on a spare bit of cloth. To her distant surprise, she realizes that the bread is gone, and she’d only had a few pieces of it. What a mercenary. She keeps waiting for him to answer, but when his silence stretches long enough to make her fidget, she bursts into noise again. “What about you? Does it ever feel like it’s not enough?”

Finally Jarett looks up, squinting off into the distance. His voice is alarmingly heavy, almost resigned, when he says, “You ask difficult questions, Lady Keyleth.”

“Oh.” She finds her hands twisting up into knots at her breastbone, an old habit that she’s never quite found it within herself to break. Another weakness, she tries not to think, because that would be bitter and that would be wrong. “Sorry.”

“Sometimes it is good to ask them.” After a moment, he turns to her with a smile. “Here is what I think: when you are a guard, it is a part of your job to only be visible when necessary. Flashy, loud, rambunctious types—they do not do as well. They do not live as long. But there is nothing wrong with the life, loud or quiet, so long as it is what you have chosen. And that is probably true for anyone, though I can only speak for myself of course.” His smile falters as he peers into her eyes. “If that is not the answer you need, I am not sure how much more help I can be.”

Keyleth feels a flutter in her chest; something that almost feels like hope. “No—no, Jarett, you’ve been a great help. Really. Really great. Thank you.” Keyleth glances around, feeling like she has to give him some kind of gift, something to show her appreciation. She picks up the jar of preserves and takes a moment to attune to the wind in her hair, the smell of grass and the blue of the sky. Then she focuses on the jar and druidcrafts a circlet of bluebells, baby blossoms wrapped around the glass, and triumphantly hands it over to Jarett. “Here.”

“Erm… my thanks. Lady.”

“No problem,” she says cheerfully. “I think I’m gonna go be not-flashy for a little bit.”

Jarett looks befuddled again, but nods amiably, still standing there with the jar in his hands as Keyleth trips off down the stairs to the inside of the keep again.

Not-flashy. _Intentionally_ not-flashy. Her view of the social world has always swung between extremes—in Zephra she was often the center of attention, but among friends who understood everything she knew and had grown up with; and in Westruun and Emon and everywhere else outside of her home, she was ignored at best and accidentally insulting at worst. She hasn’t always been invisible, but she’s often felt that way. Or more specifically, like she needs to be invisible in order to keep everything going smoothly. Ripples lead to typhoons, that sort of thing. And at the same time she’s been trying to match her companions for energy and force because that seemed like the right thing to do, that way she could become _stronger_ (that was the goal, right?), but maybe—maybe that isn’t the only way to do what they do.

And maybe destiny is stupid, anyway.

Maybe if Vax runs now when he sees her… she needs to not be seen.

Silently, Keyleth makes her way back to the courtyard, keeping her ears pricked for any suspicious sounds. It doesn’t _sound_ like Scanlan stayed nearby, and he’s usually awful at keeping quiet. Confident that she’s alone, Keyleth directs a satisfied smile to the leafy tree in their courtyard. Then she hunches her shoulders, hugs her arms tight around herself, and concentrates. She feels her bones shrinking and hollowing, her muscles shifting, her skin itching as it bursts with feathers. It isn’t really happening, but it’s part of how she gets there—and then one instant she’s standing on her own two feet, and the next she’s hopping along the ground on little bird feet, in the shape of a simple swallow.

She can hold this form for hours. It’s only mid-afternoon.

This time she’s going to choose to be quiet on purpose. Not because she doesn’t want to mess up or because she’s afraid or because every other option feels wrong. Not because she thinks she’s weak. She’s going to be quiet and not-flashy because… she can.

It turns out to be quite nice, actually. She can’t fly too far—she could go to some of the farmers’ fields, theoretically, but everything she wants to look at is here. She watches Percy leave sometime just before evening and come back bearing a basket full of baked goods, which he very sweetly gives to Erwin as a gift. She sees Grog’s hulking silhouette outlined through the colored glass in the chapel window and feels a pang of sympathetic regret.

She spends most of her time outside Vex’s window.

The twins are fascinating in an eerie sort of way when they’re together, but when they’re together with no one else nearby it’s almost scary. Like they are actually one person, split into two bodies. When one stands the other sits; one reaches to smooth the bedspread, the other’s hand is already there, halfway done with the job. It’s like a dance, or like watching storm clouds build in the sky. It’s not like anything, really, except watching two people who have grown up with no one else to trust—and that’s sad and magical all on its own, as so many of nature’s gifts are.

But the longer Keyleth watches the more she sees. Vex is more prone to quick gestures, something breezy and light, but Vax is the one who moves the sharpest now. The speed of his movement is defined in violence—in a restrained frustration. And he flinches from Vex far more she does him. He backs himself into corners of the room without any conscious attention to it, and when Vex draws him out he scowls and bares his teeth like a wild thing. He reminds her, a little, of Trinket, on the verge of battle and yearning to move but unable or unwilling to act without his mistress’ guidance.

She can see that they’re both sad; they’re both tired. But Vax is _angry._

It’s frightening. She’s never known anyone to carry so much anger around inside them without a way to channel it. Not even Grog—if anything he’s the healthiest member of the party, mentally speaking.

Keyleth spends most of the afternoon and early evening there on the windowsill, absently peeping to her startled new avian neighbors, observing the flow and rhythm of Vax’s and Vex’s body language. As the sun sinks and both the half-elves perk their ears in an adorable little twitch, Keyleth hears the clamoring of a bell calling the household to supper.

There are no windows in the great dining hall, but someone left a window in the kitchen open and she's able to zip past and find a comfortable hiding spot.

“Has anybody seen Keyleth?” Vex calls, her clear voice ringing through the common room. Keyleth, sitting in a hedge outside, lets out a singsong peep of laughter that goes unheard. To her happy surprise, it doesn’t bother her to go unnoticed this time.

“No,” Grog answers, sitting down to a massive plate of roast pork. “I’n’t she doin’, you know, magic stuff?”

“I actually haven’t seen her since last night,” Percy notes with a little frown of concern. “She wasn’t at breakfast this morning.”

“Oh, she’s fine. I bumped into her earlier today talking to the green things in the courtyard. She’s probably just, you know, forgotten what time it is.” Scanlan helps himself to a mug of something that definitely isn’t water and smiles with genuine warmth at the group. “And I left her food, so we don’t need to worry about her going hungry!”

“You? Thought of feeding someone other than yourself?” Vex gives him a beady stare as she slides onto a bench at the table.

“I am a man as generous of heart as I am quick of wit, my dear.”

“Oh sure. It’s the wit that’s quick.”

In the doorway, Vax is silent and still, staring at the table. Keyleth keeps her eyes on him while the others argue mildly about where she could have gone. When he turns away and leaves the room, she takes to the air, leaving the keep and circling it to find him, wondering where he’ll go. She guesses his room but the interior is dark and quiet; next she flies to the front gate, and catches the middle of an argument between Vax and his sister.

“—already checked her room!”

“Well I’m sure she’ll be back by morning. You know, sometimes we all go off and do our separate things—”

“We check in with each other first. It’s dangerous out there, you never know what’s coming—”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you—”

Frustrated, Vax cards a hand through his hair, yanking when the metal inlaid in his glove catches the long locks. Keyleth winces. “Look. I’m not asking anyone else to come along. It’s fine, I’m sure you’re right and nothing’s happened, but—I just want to know where she is.”

In the silvery light of moonrise, Vex’s smile is shadowy enough to be a smirk. “Always trying to be the protector, aren’t you.”

“Don’t say that, please.”

“What? Vax, I was only—”

Keyleth actually sees him go, ducking back against the pillar of the gate and sliding around it. Vex apparently does not, and calls for him several times before cursing and stomping back inside.

Curious, Keyleth lands on the stone wall behind Vax, watching. He pays her no heed, intently following Vex’s retreat with his eyes. When she’s gone, he slinks through the shadows to the other side of the gate.

Where does he think he will find her?

Determined, Keyleth follows, fluttering from perch to perch as she stalks him through the dark.

Vax actually goes back into the keep, first, to the open courtyard where he thoroughly searches the garden and checks behind the tree. He stands and waits for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, barely breathing, so still that the crickets and lightning bugs and evening warblers move about their business as if he were a natural part of the landscape. He checks the flowerbeds and the tall herbs. He climbs the great tree and pauses on her favorite branch (does he know? how did he know?), but seeing nothing drops lightly down again. She follows him inside, silent and swift-winged. He peeks into Tiberius’s laboratory and Percy’s workshop, ducks his head past the unlocked door of her room. He pauses for a long moment outside of his own room and cautiously opens the door, which for some reason sets her heart to beating fast as a hummingbird’s wings, but he leaves after only a breath. He paces the entire length of the keep’s walls before heading off to Emon proper.

He goes first to the Laughing Lamia, but doesn’t stay long before he’s out on the streets again. He visits a flower shop in Abadar’s Promenade that she thought only she knew about, checking the cheerfully lit windows before moving on. Interestingly, he halts outside Gilmore’s Glorious Goods but doesn’t step inside. He lingers at the curtained walls and leaves without a sound. He visits every shop she’s wandered through in a pleasant daze, every corner garden she’s ever briefly tended to, and eventually stops at a fountain, a simple carving of a mountain with several streams of water glistening as they run down the marble sides. He looks around for a moment, sits on the bench of the fountain, dabbles his fingers in the water. Over the quiet gurgle of the fountain, she hears him sigh heavily.

How could he know all that...?

Delicately, Keyleth alights on the ground about ten feet away from him. Vax looks up with a crooked smile. “Hello, little one,” he says softly. “You haven’t seen a stranger near here recently, have you? A new lady-bird come into town? Bright eyes, red feathers, answers to Keyleth?”

She peeps in response, laughing. Then she hops closer, closer again, and flaps her wings just enough to gain purchase on the fountain’s bench beside his leg.

“Oh,” Vax says softly. His eyes go wide and his mouth drops, then shuts.

He knows her.

That’s… something? She doesn’t know _what_ that means.

She flutters back down to the cobbles in front of Vax’ feet. With a shudder, Keyleth releases the shape of the swallow and reverts to her natural form, blowing her hair out of her face. It always gets in the way when she changes back.

He just sits there, waiting. She can’t read anything at all in his expression.

He’s still sitting there.

Is he just gonna be silent all _night?_

“Hey,” she says, trying not to be awkward. This is worse than the tree.

“Hey,” he replies, his voice a hushed whisper. It is full night now, no longer twilight, and the half-moon in the open sky paints everything in blue and silver. She can’t see his face, only angles and outlines.

What are you thinking, she wants to ask, but she imagines real princesses aren’t so gauche with their—friends. Companions? Potential suitors? Why isn’t there a good word for the right thing when she needs it?

“Sorry,” Vax blurts suddenly, a little less hoarse. He’s probably gotten over the surprise. “I didn’t mean—not that I think you’re obliged to answer. To anything. Unless you want to.”

“Uhhhh… what?” She’s lost the thread here.

“I meant, uhm. When I said. You answer to Keyleth. I just meant—that’s your name. I didn’t mean it was a summons or anything.”

“Oh… no, I wasn’t—answering. I just wanted to change back. To talk to you.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

The talking is really going well. Again.

For some reason, she thinks of her father. She hasn’t seen him in so long now—at least a year, almost two. She should have been home by now if she was worthy. He is probably so disappointed in her.

But—

“Kiki?”

“Sometimes it’s good to ask the hard questions,” she whispers to herself, closing her hands into fists tight enough to dig her nails into her palms. Not angry, not like Vax—just determined. Like a princess.

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she says, words flopping off her tongue and out of her mouth before she really thinks of them. She bites her lip and tries again. “I’ve… been thinking. About what you said. In Whitestone. And… after.”

Vax doesn’t move. He doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. She can’t see anything in his expression except a faint gleam of silver in his dark eyes.

Don’t push it. Don’t be flashy. Be not-flashy. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. But right now, I’m wondering: why do you call me Kiki?”

That startles him into movement, straightening like he’s dodging a blow. “What?”

“I, um, I think you heard me.”

“I…” He shifts on the stone curve of the fountain, uneasy. “I’m not sure—why do you want to know?”

She half-shrugs. “I just do?”

“I… well, it’s… it’s private.”

“Sure, but it’s my name, too.” Be not-flashy, she thinks, like a chant. Moving slowly and softly, as if approaching a wounded animal, she perches on the fountain beside Vax. “Don’t you think I should know?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he takes a breath and says softly, “I think… I want—I wanted something that was mine. From you. Apart from the others.”

She hums her understanding. “Okay. How did you know where to look for me?”

It’s his turn to shrug, and now Vax must have regained his equilibrium because he turns to face her, just enough moonlight falling on his face to illuminate his solemn, worried brow. “Why did you leave? You didn’t tell anyone.”

“I was trying an experiment.”

“Isn’t that more Percy’s vein?”

“Yeah, but—I think it helped. Seriously, Vax, I really didn’t think anybody knew about where I go to… you know, do things. How did you know?”

Now he’s turned towards her enough that she can see both of his eyes, but it doesn’t help her. She has no idea what he’s thinking. “I pay attention,” he says softly. “To you. That’s all it is.”

For a moment Keyleth thinks she’s lost control of her magic—she’s caused a gust, a tornado to howl up out of nowhere and spin them around and make her dizzy, that’s why she can’t breathe, that’s why the howling rush of wind is in her ears—but no, that’s the pounding of her blood, her unsteady heart.

In the rush and swirl, something becomes distinctly crystal clear: even while she thought she was invisible, even if she was feeble and meek and foolish and quiet, whether that was true in fact or only true in the fears of her heart—no matter how invisible she was, there was one person who saw it, saw her, and cared enough to keep watching.

I love you, he said to her. When she was not-flashy.

It really is okay.

“That’s… nice,” she replies breathlessly, and tries not to giggle nervously when she meets his eyes and realizes that this intense stare he’s pinning her with isn’t all that different from how he’s been looking at her for weeks. Then she giggles anyway, because _it really is okay._

Maybe she really can do this. Maybe she is quiet and small, and not big and loud and strong, and maybe she's still enough.

“Hey Vax,” she says, aware that she is smiling wide and silly. For once she's not too concerned about it. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” he answers immediately, and though his brows are quirked in puzzlement and concern she sees the glimmer of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Impulsively, she reaches out to take his hand.

“This time—can you not run away?”

His mouth opens but emits no sound, then closes. He looks away, and even in the silver-and-blue she can see the blush rising to his cheeks. For a moment she’s certain that she can lean in and kiss it, to feel the heat radiating from his skin, to listen for the gasp he would certainly make.

But things haven’t quite changed that much. There is still a future. There is still a sister and a tribe. There is still Vox Machina. And there is still fear.

So she is content to hold his hand, and as her smile softens into something less giddy, she eases a little closer but not too close. She’s satisfied, even proud, when he nods in a silent promise and stays put. She might be trembling a little, or he is, or they both are, but… it really is okay.

Keyleth leans in a little, catching his eyes, and gives his hand a gentle squeeze. “I think I’d like to know… a little more about what’s going on? With you, and me, and… everything. So… can we talk about it?”

In the moonlight with the fountain splashing behind them, he squeezes her hand in return.


End file.
